The Living by Antony Owen

I am not a silent poet

For Jo Cox

I hope your children learn what I was told as a kid by my Mother

that those brightest stars are the ones that will go first

those ones that take our breath away travel further

and then in the darkness they suddenly burst.

I hope your widower hears the immigrant birds from your soffits

that he thinks for a moment this bordered earth is all of ours.

I hope through the bird song you hear them as prophets

nnd that breaths in cold air are grey living flowers.

I hope you see a kite tail of hatchlings following their Mother

and learn that if the hawk was to snatch her in flight

that you like dying stars can guide them further

even if your eyes have lost in them her light.

I remember last year of a fox that petered out in the mist

like an ember…

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Ever Decreasing Circles by Clive Oseman

I am not a silent poet

People die, people lie crippled in the rubble,
tears of grief and grievance multiply-
No sense to any reason why,
just twisted logic, tales of revenge
and a brainwashed fool with bent perspective
and indoctrination as an ally.

People cry, search for scapegoats
ignore the facts their mangled minds can’t cope with.

Don’t mention the word “minority”
They’re all the same, turn on them,
ignore their pleas of innocence.
They’ve got the garbs, they must agree,
what the papers say is good for me.

People die, people lie crippled in the rubble.
We kill to stop the killing,
the chilling fact is, that’s all we know.
It’s all their fault, they brought it on themselves.
If they do condemn, they just pretend.

Politicians scoring points for their own ends.
There are votes to win and bigots hold the balance
They have no need to justify their stance-
The will of…

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The roof over our head by Stephen Daniels

I am not a silent poet

This lofty position offers no consolation
for a weighted opinion, heavier than a ballot box.

These roofs are built too high
to climb down, ladders out of reach.

One vote used to equal one vote,
but now I can see it is worth less.

An exchange rate of diminishing returns,
poverty continues to climb,

real returns are captured
in matured earnings.

The charts trend upwards
when turned upside down,

the long-term figure is positive
through post-truth lenses.

Meanwhile, I am up on the roof
refusing to hum Drifters songs,

sneering at the people below,
who later I will break,

as I land – from my ever declining
set of options and eroded principles,

which rush at me faster,
the further I fall.

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Things Rank and Gross in Nature by Stella Wulf

I am not a silent poet

When you went you left the stigma,

the green blush of sepal and leaf,

an unfurling flush of petal,

the blossoming of symmetry,

your tenuous pact with nature.

In your absence a womandrake grew.

Black Bryony, sways the young trees,

wheedles her way into hedges, stealing

with poisonous insinuation,

into the hearts of sweet peas.

Convolvulus too, the strumpet,

sidles into Black Stockings,

snakes up the slender limbs

of Iris, Lily, Marigold, Rose,

tightens her noose at their throats.

Spotty Spurge sprawls in the gravel,

a stubbly punter in a seedy bed.

Hogweed and Hairy Bittercress

stump up for the evening distillation,

old muckers out on the razzle.

Wall Lettuce slouches in corners,

Fat Hen cavorts with Mallow,

Common Daisy, Nipplewort, Thistle,

cruise the allées and borders.

Nightshade lurks in the shadows.

You survived the uprooting,

the thousand brittle severances,

the paralysing blight of instability.

You’re back with a new…

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On a Ramble by Stella Wulf

I am not a silent poet

‘Where some people have a self, most people have a void, because they are too busy in wasting their vital creative energy to project themselves as this or that, dedicating their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like rather than actualizing their potentiality as a human being.’ Bruce Lee, 1940 – 1973

We walk our path, my dog and me,

to make our outer selves fit

with our inner selves,

trying not to waste our creative energy,

and thinking about Bruce Lee.

Me, that is, not the dog,

she only has one self only,

which is focused on eating shit,

and I wonder how much shit

Bruce Lee had to take

when he finally got his break,

and the powers that be projected

what ought to be, saying

ACTION, speaks louder

than philosophy.

We walk our path, my dog and me,

picking up shit along…

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Drawing a Line by Stella Wulf

I am not a silent poet

You hadn’t prepared for Stony Ground,

feeling inclined to a touch of flesh and blood,

vibrant, intense, Incarnadine.

Now you’re rolling out the Night Sky

with its scumble of Pearl,

drowning the deep Sea Blue,

in a muddy skim of Dead Salmon,

a dull neutrality of appeasement

for off-milk folk who might come after,

who spurn contrast and colour,

who can only live with New White,

Old White, or at a push,

Churlish Green.

You’re moving on, effacing the past,

but you vote for the Miró-esque mural

to remain, on the grounds of history.

‘An old house should resist,’

you say, ‘retain some of its mystery,’

like the World War Two pistol

you found in the rafters of the barn,

and pencilled on the lime-wash walls,

the names and ages of a family harboured,

erased one Mole’s Breath night.

You dip into Pitch Black,

make an arc around the sickle…

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